Beginners Guide to Duris
Kebin's Basic Newbie Guide MUD'ing in general, Duris culture *MUD's use a lot of text, sometimes they have aspects of a graphical interface, such as an overworld map *MUD's use a room system, if you are in a room you can interact with other things inside the room, some abilities interact with adjacent rooms, some spells/abilities can be "ranged" which means using them on targets in adjacent rooms *Duris allows for exp loss from death, and level loss from exp loss *Duris is an open PKill MUD, and while it is very rare it is possible to purge someone by killing them repeatedly - which causes exp loss *Duris is also a racewar MUD, and PK'ing one's own side is very rare (accidents happen in the chaos sometimes) *Duris is a pretty tightly knit community and although drama does occur, there's a certain lack of it sticking usually - it happens often but shouldn't be taken too seriously *There is an Overhead Map in the game, this allows you to see a graphical representation of the area nearby you while in the world at large, the standard MUD room vision exists within zones Zones, Maps and Layouts Zone layouts are based around rooms, a room is considered a place things can exist in, and these are connected to other rooms, the entire MUD is made up like this sometimes people make maps of these for the rest of the playerbase - they will not always look the same but they will follow certain general rules with this map style any rooms you can move to from it will be connected by a line - rooms that are beside each other but not connected by a line are not connected in game - location on the map does not necessarily represent some specific distance - if there were 2 rooms and one were described as 200 miles above the other room, it would still be possible to look into it as easily as a room that was described as 2 centimeters away provided there were no special programming "flags" to prevent it Example 1A Example 2A some of the maps for players by players will be a different style, in this case the rooms are not denoted simply by lines, but by proximity - example 1C uses lines to denote walls that prevent one from traveling between certain adjacent rooms Example 1B Example 1C Basic Movement, Combat, Sight, Communication, Miscellaneous skills : The following is just a basic list for starters to be able to interact with the world, *'Movement' :: All characters have at least 2 numbers in their prompt, these represent Health and moVement points, moving takes points, on roads/paved this takes one point, in other places such as jungles/desert/mountains it can easily take 7 points to move a single space :: Certain things like sitting/standing/kneeling affect what combat abilities you can use, and in general the further you are to the ground the worse your attack and defense will be in fights - but it will be harder to use takedowns on you for obvious reasons * Stand, Kneel, Sit, Rest (puts you into sitting position), Recline, * North, South, West, East, Up, Down, NorthWest, NorthEast, SouthWest, SouthEast * Retreat - some classes can flee in a specific direction * Sleep (I include this one because it's used to regenerate movement points the fastest), Wake (to stop sleeping, also useful for when you've been knocked out) * Climb (10 moves to move a single square, prevents you from falling as much) * Flee(makes you run out of the room if possible, into any adjacent room in any random direction available and costs lots of moves, it can fail too but this is the most common and important way to get out of combat - beware, running panic stricken through dangerous hallways is a good way to lose your corpse forever or bring extra monsters down on your group, sealing their fate) *'Combat' :: In combat, a lot of abilities will target the enemy you're engaged with if you leave it blank, if you are not engaged with an enemy then it simply won't work - you can't backstab a nothing after all, therefore "Ability is necessary for many of these things. Some abilities such as hitall (which can be used as "hitall all") are used to hit... everything, "hitall" will hit everything engaged in combat with you, "hitall all" will attempt to hit everything not part of your party within the room you are in :: it should also be noted that all characters have the ability to dodge, some skills are passive, meaning they will happen automatically by chance in certain situations, for instance sometimes when you are attacked your character will dodge the attack - these are dependent on many factors #Kill #Kick #toggle vicious (once an enemy is officially incapacitated at 0 hp or less you will break off combat if this is toggled off, or take advantage of this and keep killing the enemy - this is useful for when you want to leave it open to using other abilities sometimes) #Cast '' - the ' ' quotes are necessary - example..... cast 'magic missile' dragon *'Sight' :: Knowing What's around you is vital to staying alive in this game so here are a few things you can do # Look (this one does two things, untargeted it looks at the room, if targeted at something or someone it looks at that thing - looking while hidden does not break hide but looking at things while hiding is a specific thief ability) # Scan (gives a basic rundown of mobiles or players up to 5 rooms away in any of the 10 basic directions) # Glance (this is "look lite" and it gives a basic information such as how healthy a player or mob is without breaking hide) *'Communication' :: Talking is part of any social experience and it's important to know how to talk to relevant parties in any given interest, ALL communication skills aside from emotionals known as emotes require that you say something on top of the command, from here on out is just a stand-in to note where you would put whatever you want to let people know - it is not a formal code or order or command : Nchat (the most important for newbies, this will allow you to talk with people even if you're otherwise completely lost and confused, it also happens to be used as a general social channel # Say (anyone in the room can hear this) # Tell (gives your message to a specific player) # GCC tells your guild your message # Shout will let players hear you within a large radius of rooms # Whisper will quietly tell someone within the same room your message # Reply will automatically send your message as a tell to the last person who sent you a tell # Ask is a special kind of communication ability, this is how you interact vocally with mobiles - particularly for quests and other things, it can also be used in a similar manner to tell, but only if the recipient is in the same room and they are not invisible or in a dark room : *'Interaction Misc'. words in (brackets) mean you don't need to type it out, it's just there for you to get the idea of what you're doing, for instance, if you wanted to get every single one of 10 Succulent Roasts from a table, you could type get all.roast table as an example Give (to) , Take (from) , Get , Get (from) , Put (into) For coins in your backpack, "Take all.coins bp" works to take all the coins out of your backpack "Put all.coins bp" works to put all the coins you're running around with into your backpack - holding too many coins while moving will make make you drop a few whenever you move to a new room so this is a good way to keep your money there are ways to get specific items that you want, when you don't want others - and sometimes distinguishing with a number is important because some items have similar keywords that represent them when you type commands, let's say that there is also a mouldy roast at the table if you were to "examine table" you might see (10) Succulent roast(CURSED!) :::: A mouldy roast if you only wanted one of the roasts, or perhaps there was a mouldy one that you wanted instead for whatever reason (maybe it's a quest item) then if you need to differentiate between keywords, you can always use a number, if there were 11 roasts total, and the 11th one down the list was a mouldy one, "get 11.roast (from) table" would nab the thing, another option is simply to type "get mouldy (from) table" Spell Systems, Memming/Praying/Casting Casting spells is quite simple, simply type.... cast 'spellnamehere' - the ' ' are necessary Example is as follows... cast 'magic missile' dragon Some spells do not require a target, since they affect one's self only, or an entire room in those cases simply type.... cast 'spellnamehere' Example is as follows.... cast 'judgement' for the best paladin area effect spell, or cast 'soulshield' for the self-only buff soulshield *There are 2 systems of spells, spell circles that require "memming" and mana (psionicists only) *The spell circle system has 4 different styles of "memming" which is the general term that covers all forms of attaining spells, psionicists regen mana at all times even in fights, although it regenerates very slowly while in combat, and spells/abilities for psionicists cost certain amounts of mana there is also a function called "meditate" which all spellcasting/memming classes benefit from - it can automatically finish memming the currently mem'd spell in half the time it usually takes, or speed up mana regeneration for psionicists *The spell circle system is more complex, there are 12 potential spell circles, at any given level you will have a certain amount of spell slots available for each circle that you can use spells in, each of these spells is mem'd previous to usage, and once expended must be remem'd to use it again (think of spells as akin to bullets, and memorizing as reloading - as you gain levels you will be able to load up more total, and faster per spell as well as have access to higher level/better spells) for instance, a level 14 caster will be able to use spells from circle 1, 2 and 3 - they will also have access to more spells to fire off than than a level 11 for those circles before they have to mem again, and a level 50 will have many, many, many more spells of all circles to play with Spell Circle, Minimum Exp level required : 1:1, 2:6, 3:11, 4:16, 5:21, 6:26 : 7:31, 8:36, 9:41, 10:46, 11:51, 12:56 each of the methods a caster acquires the ability to send spells flying also relies on a certain stat for improvement Intelligence Psionicist Mana Memorize - magician spelltype classes (sorcerer, bard, conjurer, necromancer, illusionist) Wisdom pray - priest spelltype classes (cleric, paladin, shaman), tupor (ethermancer), commune (druid and ranger) 'Takedowns' : Takedowns are an important part of the game, while there are a number of skills to damage targets, takedowns are important because non-standing targets hit less often, don't hit as hard, and are easier to hit and take more damage... this makes it a desirable thing to inflict on one's enemies and something to avoid if possible the stand, and flee commands will make you stand up if possible should you be taken down, as an important side note, if you are already not standing up, it is harder to take you down as you are more stable/already down (kneeling, sitting, lying about) many takedowns will cause the person who uses them to fall down instead of their intended target if they fail...this does more than equalize things because takedowns always "lag" the person doing them which means they cannot use other abilities for a time after, and this lag is even more than usual if they fail - thus allowing you to sometimes get in an extra combat ability or spell as well as turning the tables in combat (dice)rolls, failing a takedown is very bad for the person trying it! *Bash (warriors) - works best with a shield *Shieldless Bash (paladins typically use two handed weapons, this skill uses the keyword bash but works well without shields) *Springleap (monks, rangers) *maul (berserkers - only takes down sometimes) *roundkick (monks - only takes down sometimes) *Trip (thief specialized rogues, scoundrel specialized bards) *Tackle (mercenaries) *BodySlam (given to the firbolg, ogre and barbarian races regardless of class) - this cannot be used in combat, but does not require a shield, works in tandem with leglock for mercenaries *ROOM/WALLKICK! (any really big race kicking a small enough race) - this effect sometimes naturally occurs from regular kicks (the basic skill everyone has) but requires kicker to be at least two levels of size bigger than the target, sends the recipient flying out of the room sometimes, or against a wall - this always knocks them down... midget punting anyone? *Charge (minotaurs) - this can be used in the same room or from one room away, but it does not always knock the target down *Lance Charge (paladins, demonic riders) - uses the same keyword as the minotaur's charge and does a similar effect, however this requires the knight to be on horseback and to have a polearm (lance) equipped Bank and locker commands Since dying is such a large part of duris, and because it would be no fun to lose everything every time you died, there exist a nmber of banks, each with a locker function in them Banks when you enter a bank room, you can type "enter locker" to enter your locker, you can enter your personal locker from any bank, and your balance will be available from any bank, there is no seperate storage from city to city, this includes money deposits! There exist Platinum, Gold, Silver and Copper coins within the world of duris when inside a bank room, the following commands exist *ENTER LOCKER (takes you to your personal locker, this costs money based on how many items you have in your locker) *BALANCE - tells you how much of each type of coin you have in the bank *DEPOSIT - EG. deposit 100 copper *WITHDRAW - EG. withdraw 100 silver *EXCHANGE Examples of monetary exchange: exchange 1000 gcoins pcoins exchange 1000 copper platinum exchange 5 platinum scoin The standard Duris currency values equate as: 10 copper =1 silver 10 silver =1 gold 10 gold =1 platinum Be aware that many banks will have a higher exchange rate as they like to charge an processing fee! Lockers while inside your locker, you will notice that there is a chest, and that dropping items prompts a small gremlin to take them off the ground and put it into the locker, containers do not receive this treatment putting containers inside of the chest will probably cause you to lose those containers and anything inside them, do not put containers inside the personal locker chest! you can take items from the chest, put items in the chest or simply drop things and the gremlin will sort that out for you there is a door to the north in everyone's personal locker, open this and walk north to exit the locker, you cannot speak to people while in a locker, nor can you receive tells, but you can hear Nchat you will always have a locker chest of "unsorted items" in your personal locker you can also type "Equip sort" within the locker, which will give you a very long list (a help file essentially) Equip sort is used to create another, temporary chest of items you possess, with certain characteristics Eg. Equip sort monk - will give you a 2nd chest inside the locker and put things monks can wear into that chest Equip sort DEX_MAX - will give you a 2nd chest inside the locker and put things in it that give DEX_MAX Equip sort wield - will give you a 2nd chest inside the locker and put things in it that are weapons ''Equip sort ear ''- will give you a 2nd chest inside the locker and put things in it that are able to worn on ears you can also do two other things for sorting gear out A: you can type "equip sort" etc etc to get multiple (1, 2, 3 etc etc) extra chests, each with items of those respective properties or B: type "equip sort custom" etc etc etc - to get items with all the properties mentioned within a single chest - if you type out "equip sort custom eyes shield" you will get nothing, because no shield can be worn on the eyes and nothing that's worn on the eyes can be used as a shield, therefore nothing will fit the definition if you were to type equip sort custom DAMROLL HITROLL or CON_MAX WIS_MAX you may very well have an item that fits the bill, or perhaps you want to type equip sort custom SHIELD CON_MAX for a shield that gives you more health